


support

by Twice_before_Friday



Series: Altered & Extended - season 1 [12]
Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e12 Internal Affairs, Friendship, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Stand Alone, Support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22548526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twice_before_Friday/pseuds/Twice_before_Friday
Summary: Takes place after Gil leaves Malcolm alone in his apartment at the end of episode 12.  JT swings by for a chat and Malcolm discovers he doesn't have to go it alone.
Relationships: Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel
Series: Altered & Extended - season 1 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557952
Comments: 25
Kudos: 176





	support

**Author's Note:**

> All works in this series are stand alone. You don't need to have read the others to read this one.
> 
> Was I the only one a little disappointed that Gil didn't offer Malcolm a little bit of help? The poor guy has been through the ringer, so I figured I should give him a little extra support. And I'd like to think that JT would have a 'no man left behind' attitude about his team and would want to help.

_I was wrong. It's not because of you. I'm sorry._

_I know, kid. I know._

\---

The door closes softly behind Gil, leaving Malcolm alone with his thoughts once again. And ever since John Watkins had taken him - had abducted and tortured him and tried to murder his family, a little voice in his mind corrects - alone with his thoughts is a decidedly unpleasant place to be.

When he’s surrounded by other people, especially when he’s working, it's just a little bit easier to ignore his hallucinations, to slip on his 'I'm fine' mask and keep it in place. Years of practice have made it second nature whenever he's around others, especially people who might be looking a little more closely. People that are becoming something like friends.

But when he's alone? That's a different story altogether.

He doesn't have anyone else to focus on. To be normal for. He can't fake it without an audience.

He leans his forearms on the counter, drink safely ensconced in the space between his arms, and closes his eyes with a sigh.

Two weeks of forced leave. Two weeks trapped alone with his thoughts. He knows Gil is right, though, he needs to step back. He'd just admitted to Gil - and to himself, really - that he isn't fine. Now he just has to figure out what to do about it.

The sound of his front door buzzer is a welcome distraction from trying to decide what the first step should be. He assumes Gil must have forgotten something and his eyes cast around the apartment as he walks to the entryway, buzzing the door open without even using the intercom first. He doesn't see anything of Gil's, but if he's honest with himself, he’s happy to just have a few more minutes of company before being left to his own devices. Not that he’ll ever come right out and ask him to stay. But he can sense his ten-year-old self flickering in his peripheral vision and he isn't quite ready to deal with that yet.

Malcolm shuffles back to the breakfast bar to take his seat as the front door clicks open and then shut again. He startles and nearly drops his drink when he hears JT's rumbling voice.

"Shouldn't just buzz people in, man."

Malcolm spins around to face his visitor, eyes wide with surprise. "JT. I, uh, I wasn't expecting you," he stumbles over his words as he tries to process the man's unexpected presence in his apartment. "Um. What can I do for you?"

JT is the last person Malcolm would have expected to see. He knows that he isn't the detective's favourite person on the best days and assumed that a two week 'Bright-free' break would be a welcome relief to the man. So for him to be standing in Malcolm's entranceway - looking slightly uncomfortable, Malcolm notices - is unexpected, to say the least.

"Uh, can I offer you a drink?" He expects the man to turn down the offer and cut straight to the point. And Malcolm is starting to get a queasy, sinking feeling about what that point is going to be.

"Sure. Thanks." JT says, shrugging off his leather jacket while he walks in and joins Bright at the breakfast bar, tossing his jacket on the countertop as he hoists himself onto one of the stools. Bright blinks at him, completely at a loss for a second as he’s once again caught off-guard by the detective. He realizes he's going to have to find his footing soon or this conversation is going to be even harder to have.

"What's your poison?" Bright asks as he heads over to the cabinet where his liquor is stored, taking the opportunity to compose and prepare himself with a few steady breaths. "I have a pretty good selection of _very_ good alcohol."

"Scotch?" JT asks.

Malcolm pours a generous amount of scotch into a crystal tumbler and brings it back to JT with a cautious smile. The detective nods his thanks and swirls the amber liquid in the glass, sniffing lightly before taking a mouthful and closing his eyes to savour the oakwood flavour.

"Wow," JT says after swallowing and running his tongue over his lips to catch any remaining flavour. "You weren't kidding about it being very good alcohol."

Malcolm discreetly observes JT as he takes another sip, hoping to find some sign, some micro-expression or body language cue, to tell him he's wrong about what his gut-instinct is screaming this visit is about. But JT has always been unusually difficult to profile and has a knack for surprising Malcolm with frustrating ease. Case in point, Malcolm would have pegged JT as a man who drinks his scotch like he does his coffee, in tasteless gulps to get the hit of caffeine as quickly as possible. Turns out JT is more of the sip-and-savour type. The man is full of surprises.

When JT finally angles his body towards Malcolm, leaning one elbow on the countertop, Malcolm feels his stomach drop. He knows what this is.

"We need to talk," JT says.

The tension in the set of JT's jaw tells Bright that the detective doesn't really want to have this conversation, but the way he's holding himself with his chin up and shoulders pulled back tells Malcolm that he's planning to soldier his way through it anyways.

Malcolm's eyes drop away, down to the cast encasing his fractured hand and he realizes that his heart is feeling the same way. Fractured. Gil may have forgiven him, may be willing to give him another chance, but if the rest of the team doesn't want him there anymore...

Gil would have the final say, obviously, but Malcolm knows that man better than anyone and he knows Gil would never do something that his team was so adamantly opposed to. If JT and Dani _really_ want Malcolm gone, that's the end for him.

A weight settles on Malcolm's chest, making it hard to manage a full breath as he waits for the axe to fall. From the beginning, JT put up a fuss about Bright working cases with them, and Bright can admit to himself that some of the hostility that was directed his way was his own fault. But after that first case, JT never seemed to truly want Malcolm gone. As much as Bright knows he annoys the man, JT eventually seemed to grudgingly accept the profiler's place on the team.

But if Malcolm is right, JT is about to tell him that he doesn't want to work with him anymore, no longer wants him on the team at all. And Malcolm can't even say he blames him. Things got a little...out of hand, leading up to The Incident, but Malcolm had hoped that catching Dr. Coppenrath would have made up for everything, proved that he was still capable of doing his job.

Apparently not.

Dr. Coppenrath had asked Malcolm if he often inserted himself where he was not needed, and he (mostly) jokingly replied that he was always needed, not always wanted. But if JT _really_ doesn't want Malcolm there, maybe even feels like the team would be better off without Malcolm’s hallucinations and increasingly reckless behaviour slowing them down, then there's no way that Malcolm can keep subjecting them to his presence. He knows that he will respect JT's wishes. Even if it kills him.

But that doesn't mean he won't fight to change JT's mind first.

"Look, JT," Malcolm spins sideways on the barstool and catches the detective’s eye, silently pleading with him to reconsider. "I know things went a little sideways on this last case. And I'll admit that maybe it was too soon for me to come back after everything that happened with John Watkins." He swallows hard, visions of being chained to the concrete floor, of the knife ripping into his body, of bringing the hammer down on his own hand, all of it flashes behind his eyes. He takes a shaky breath and continues, "But I can fix this, if you just give me a chance."

"Bright," JT says quietly.

"I can do better. I promise," Malcolm starts speaking a little faster, trying to persuade JT to give him another shot. "Gil just put me on administrative leave for two weeks, and I can use that time to get everything under control. I swear, I won't compromise any cases when I come back."

"Bright." JT tries again a little more forcefully, but it just amps up Malcolm’s building intensity and sends him veering towards manic as he bounds up from his seat to start pacing and gesturing wildly, trying to convince the detective that he can still be an asset. 

"Please Detective Tarmel, I can still help. I know I can. I realize I'm a bit of a mess right now, but I can still get in the mind of a killer. I can still help save people, if you just give me a chance to prove it. Please give me the chance, JT. I don't know what I am without the job and I -"

"Bright!" JT calls out, stopping Malcolm in his tracks. "Dude. Breathe."

Malcolm scrubs a hand over his face as he tries, and fails, to ignore the three dead versions of himself that are flickering over JT's shoulder in the kitchen. He sees the concern on JT's face as his eyes dart back and forth between JT and the hallucinations and he knows that he just blew his only chance. His shoulders slump in defeat and he nods in resignation.

"I don't know what's going on in that freaky brain of yours right now, but I'm not here to fire you. I don't even have the authority to do that if I wanted to." JT says, clearly confused about Bright's pleas to keep working.

It takes a minute for Malcolm to process that, for the meaning of the words to break around the fog of panic that's rolling through his mind. He chews on his lip as hesitantly looks JT in the eye, needing to read him when he asks. Needing to see if he's telling the truth.

"You don't want me to stop consulting?" Malcolm asks, painfully torn between disbelief and hope.

"No, man. Why would you think that?" JT asks but revises himself before Malcolm has a chance to answer. "You know what, nevermind, you don't even need to answer that."

Malcolm feels like he's lost the thread of this conversation.

"Can we go sit?" JT asks, tilting his head towards the couch.

Malcolm nods slowly and gestures for JT to lead the way. JT grabs both of their drinks and heads to the living room, setting the glasses down on the table before settling himself on the supple leather. Bright sits down on the opposite side of the couch, as far from JT as he can manage, needing the space to sort through the jumbled chaos in his mind.

JT shifts to angle himself slightly towards Bright and rubs his palms over his thighs, once, twice, before clearing his throat to speak.

"Look. I know you went through some rough shit, man. And you know we were all listening in to your conversations with Dr. Coppenrath, so we heard everything about your pops planning to kill you and the hallucinations you’ve been having." JT holds up his hands to halt Malcolm's protest as soon as the kid opens his mouth. "Don't. Don't bother trying to play it off like you said it just to catch him."

Malcolm sinks into the corner of the sofa, deflating. He closes his eyes against the flashes of memory that assault him at the reminder of what Watkins had revealed, a faint tremor running through his hand as he sees visions of his father, of Watkins, of his own ten-year-old corpse.

"I can't imagine what you went through when you were with him, or what you're feeling now," JT says gently. 

Malcolm blows out a breath and balls his shaking hand into a fist to quell the tremor. Now is not the time for a breakdown. He turns his head slightly to look at JT, surprised by the kindly tone and wondering where exactly this conversation is going. JT, Malcolm realizes, looks concerned. About him. And he's not entirely sure what to do with that. JT presses on, so Malcolm puts that tangled mess of emotions on the back burner for the time being. 

"But in the service," JT continues, "you see things and you do things that you can't just forget and move on from. So I do understand that." He pauses, making sure Bright is really listening before he carries on. "So what I'm saying, is that I know that it helps to talk about what happened. And I'm here to listen if you want to talk about what happened to you."

There’s a confusing knot of emotions tightening in Malcolm’s chest, a mixture of shock, gratitude and apprehension, the feelings washing over him and blending into something that makes him feel lightheaded and nauseous, and he suddenly realizes that having that drink with Gil when he hasn't eaten anything in nearly two days was maybe a bad idea and is not helping the current situation.

JT sits patiently, waiting for Malcolm to process and respond. Bright can’t help but notice that the detective is purposefully keeping his body language open, arms loose at his side and legs uncrossed, and, uncomfortable as he may be with having this conversation at all, his facial expressions are broadcasting nothing but acceptance and receptiveness.

"You've had this conversation before," Bright says quietly, unintentionally profiling the man, but he can't just shut that part of himself off. It’s who he is.

"Too many times," JT says honestly. "PTSD is more common than you might think in returning soldiers. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Bright. But you can't just ignore it and hope it goes away."

Malcolm nods absently. JT's not wrong, even if Malcolm doesn't want to admit it to himself. He can't keep running from the ghosts that are haunting him, because he knows he'll never be able to outrun them. There's has to come a time that he faces them down.

"I know you have a therapist, and that's great, but sometimes it helps to talk with other people that have survived a trauma. I'm here if you want, or I can give you a list of groups that meet to help each other through, if you'd rather talk to someone else. You don’t have to do this alone. And it’s really helpful to have a support system."

Malcolm is sitting hunched in the corner, making himself as small as possible as he reflects on what JT is saying.

A support system.

And with a sudden flash of clarity, he realizes that somewhere along the way, he somehow managed to build one of those without even noticing.

He remembers the relief on his mother's face as he rounded the corner, blood-soaked and dead on his feet, after taking care of John Watkins. How she hugged him like she meant it for the first time since he was a child. How she silently wept in the hard plastic chair beside his bed when she thought he was asleep following his second surgery.

He remembers Ainsley's face as she stumbled towards him, bloody and concussed and so damn happy that he was safe. The way she clung to him and wouldn't let him ride in a separate ambulance to the hospital.

He remembers Dani's panicked pounding on the door when he locked himself in the conference room, the way she almost kicked the door in to make sure he wasn’t hurt. How she placed her hands on his head, surprisingly gentle considering how anxious she was, checking for electrocution marks. How there were tears in her eyes as she realized he was okay.

He remembers how Gil, as always, was there for him through everything. How he stayed all those nights with him at the hospital so he wouldn't be alone when the night terrors, now exponentially worse with so many more memories to torment him, left him screaming and crying in the middle of the night. How he let him work the cult case even when he shouldn't, because Malcolm said it was what he needed. How he forgave him so easily for saying the unthinkable.

And now, JT is there, supporting him. Trying to get him to accept some help and understand that it's okay to need it. And as indifferent as the man usually is towards him, Malcolm sees now that he honestly cares.

"Bright? Bright, you good?" JT asks when Malcolm has been quiet just a little too long.

Malcolm offers a small but genuine smile. "I think I will be. And I appreciate the offer to talk. I do. I think maybe I need to work a few things through on my own first, though." He sees the flicker of his younger self beside JT, but all of a sudden it seems less terrifying. He uncurls from himself and sits a little taller as the fear that had wrapped itself so tightly around him loosens for the first time in weeks.

JT looks like he wants to press a little harder, but then seems to sense the change in Bright and decides to leave it. For now.

"Okay. If you change your mind, I'm here." JT says as he gets to his feet, clapping Malcolm on the back before he heads to the door and shows himself out, leaving Malcolm alone with his hallucination sitting beside him on the couch.

\---

_I know you're there I get it. You're a manifestation of my subconscious. It's all so devastating._

_He tried to kill us._

_But he didn't._

_I'm a civilian now, Sunshine. We're gonna have lots of time together. Just you, me and..._

_We're gonna be okay._


End file.
